


For All the Thens and Nows

by callmecathy



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Drabbles, Established Relationship, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmecathy/pseuds/callmecathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reese loves the fact that the person he wakes up beside is Finch. Until Finch starts complaining about the thread count on the sheets.</p>
<p>(An ongoing collection of drabbles.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Of These Mornings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triple drabble.  
> The title is from the song "One Of These Mornings" by Moby, from the episode "Til Death".

Finch doesn't stay over every night. The times he does, they spend those early hours of morning getting ready together.

They make the bed first-- Finch insists. So Reese pulls the sheets taut and beats the pillows into submission. "No one likes an unmade bed," Finch informs him seriously, spreading the duvet. Although that's not true-- Reese likes seeing evidence that both sides of the bed have been occupied.

A shower, next.

"Please tell me we have shampoo."

Reese makes a sound halfway been acknowledgement and denial.

"You were _supposed_ to write it on the list, Mr. Reese. How many times must I tell you to _put it on the_ _list?_ "

Reese mixes up a baking-powder substitute.

Afterwards, he reaches for the bottle of Crew for the third time.

"Less gel, Mr. Reese." Finch says promptly.

Shaving. Reese nicks himself.

Finch sighs, and hands him a tissue. "I do not understand how you can shoot a target from a hundred meters away but fail to de-stubble yourself without hazard."

Reese grins and dabs at his chin. The reason being, of course, that Finch isn't distracting him by standing two feet away smelling of fresh soap and cologne with his half-buttoned shirt leaving his chest bare.

Breakfast.

"I made Eggs Benedict." Finch says, with a proud note in his voice. Reese taught him how to make that dish yesterday.

Then after they eat, they steel themselves for the brisk morning chill and head to the Library.

They are always very careful with this routine. They know, at best, that the next hours or days will deteriorate into chaos as they deal with their new number; at worst, it could be the last time they spend time together. Because that's how it works, living life knowing death might be sooner than later.


	2. Live With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Massive Attack's "Live With Me", which played in Mission Creep.  
> Double drabble.

"Really, Mr. Reese, did you try to subdue a bear with this thing?"

They're cooking dinner in Reese's apartment. Finch is brandishing a skillet with a dent the size of Bolivia.

"A rat, actually. Very large." Finch gives it a horrified look until Reese relents. "I got it from Salvation Army."

He sighs. "How do you expect to cook anything with this? I'll buy you some new ones."

"Just... name an expensive brand and I'll order them."

"It's about quality, not price. Only the best for you, Mr. Reese."

*

Reese loves the fact that the person he wakes up beside is Finch. Until Finch starts complaining about the thread count on the sheets.

"What is this, two hundred?" He asks, plucking at it. "Two fifty?" He says, hopefully.

Reese just burrows further under the covers.

"We have got to do something about this, Mr. Reese."

First the pans. Then the curtains. Then the rugs and the furniture. "You'd think you're moving in or something." Reese says.

Finch gives him the _look._

He blinks. "Finch?"

"Maybe not all the time." Finch says, softly. "But often... if you'll have me."

Finch can remodel the whole goddamn apartment if he likes. "Always, Harold."

       


	3. I'll Give You The World; Just Tell Me Your Name

Moonlight is slanting in through the windows, making Finch look shadowy, ghost-like. It's afterwards, but Reese still can't sleep.  
"Finch." He says. "Harold."  
"Get some rest, John." Finch murmurs without opening his eyes.  
Reese reaches out and brushes his fingers along his collarbone. "Will you ever tell me your name?"  
Those blue eyes blink back owlishly at him. "What's in a name?"  
Not much; Reese has to believe that, if he continues to carry the name Kara Stanton had given him. "Harold... Finch... are either of those even... you...?"  
"Go to sleep, Mr. Reese."  
A name shouldn't matter. It does.


	4. Contingence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quadruple drabble.  
> I'll be using both past and present tense, depending on the drabbles.

"Harold," Reese said, laying the flat of his palm along the edge of Finch's jaw line, and Finch knew then he wasn't going to ask, because if he asked, Finch would always, always have to say no.

Every output had a traceable beginning so long as it belonged to a clear equation. Except, Finch sincerely couldn't remember the exact moment that he had _felt_ for Reese-- "felt" being an easier, if perhaps infinitely and appropriately more ambiguous, word than "love".

He'd suspected very close to the beginning that this might happen. Proximity and shared danger and their isolation being what it was, it had been enough of a predictability that he'd constructed mental and literal walls against it. He'd had a great deal of practice stifling such greedy deceptive words as "I want", and under layers of contingencies "ardency" had just been a dull flighty ache slipping in on stray moments.

Intuitive ones, at first, such as when Reese headed off on a particularly dangerous mission, or when bullets and silence echoed across the comm. More and more frequently of late it had been the times over the line when he surprised Reese awake, into the night or early in the morning, on a hoarse waking-breath.

Reese's hands were warm and calloused rough. "Feel free to stop me any time," He told him, and then he was kissing him, fervently, avidly; and after several frozen moments Finch let himself settle into the taste of need.

He let himself sway into Reese neat as a lynchpin, yanked up their shirttails, dragged his hands up till his fingers found those persistent buttons on their Oxford shirts. He dealt with them patiently, pulled each one undone; then those thin two layers were gone. He tugged Reese forward, till they were pressed close enough to feel the time of their heartbeats.

In all his life, he'd tried to let equations govern his actions, counted on variables and constants to lead him right, bring him safely to the expected outcome. It hadn't worked, of course. If it had he wouldn't be here.

There were, he supposed, no shortage of reasons to shatter them both, to step away, take his breaths back as his own. Yet contingencies were designed primarily as preventative measures, and suddenly there was nothing to prevent.

Because until the moment he touched John Reese, nothing had ever been truly sure or simple.


End file.
